20 November, 2007

It looks like the allergen-friendly snack food market is eyeing a new marketing strategy: autism-friendly foods.

There is a belief growing among austistic people and parents of autistic children, that eating a gluten-free, and casein-free diet actually improves the management of symptoms. The belief stems from someone named Dr. FC Dohan, who in the 1960's hypothesized that gluten and dairy foods might worsen the behaviors of people stricken with schizophrenia and behavioral disorders.

With the age of the Internet, more people are learning about this, and hence the movement is growing.

Enjoy Life Natural Brands, LLC, the company behind the Enjoy Life brand of allergen-free foods, jumped on this new marketing strategy. Today the company issued a press release touting its products, such as the Soft Baked Snickerdoodle Cookies, actually help austistic children get through their daily lives.

In fact, ANDI actually sells its own line of "autism-friendly" candy bars, the "ANDI Bar".

What they need to do now is come up with an official stamp identifying an item as autism-friendly.

And the autism industry is a market that appears to be gaining in numbers, with 1.5 million Americans currently affected with some form, and growing by 10-17 percent each year, according to the Autism Society of America. It's a market that allergen-free food makers can exploit.